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Music · The Battle of Britpop · Take No. 028

Oasis or Blur?

August 1995: two singles released the same day, a chart battle on the evening news, a whole country picking a side. Blur won the week. Who won the war?

The case for each side, then the verdict. Then the floor is yours.
The case for

Oasis

Manchester · 1991–2009 · 2025–

  • 22MCopies of (What's the Story) Morning Glory? sold worldwide. Blur's best seller is a fraction of that.
  • 250kPeople at Knebworth over two nights in 1996, with millions more applying. The biggest band in Britain, by a mile.
  • 2025The reunion sold out stadiums worldwide in hours. Thirty years on, the demand never went away.
vs
The case for

Blur

Colchester · London · 1988–

  • Aug 1995'Country House' beats 'Roll With It' to No. 1. They won the actual fight.
  • 5Consecutive No. 1 albums in the UK, each one different from the last, from Britpop to lo-fi to Think Tank.
  • GorillazDamon Albarn built a second band that outsold Blur worldwide. Range nobody in Oasis has shown.

Cast your take

——
The verdict

It's Oasis. Blur made more interesting records; Oasis made the ones people sing.

Blur's case is the critic's case, and it's a good one: a band that kept changing, a songwriter who built a second empire, and the trophy from the week that mattered. Parklife and 13 are better albums than anything Oasis did after 1995.

But the point of a band is the songs that outlive it, and 'Wonderwall,' 'Don't Look Back in Anger,' 'Live Forever' and 'Champagne Supernova' are sung by stadiums of people who weren't born in 1995. Blur won the battle; Oasis won the pub. Oasis.

Disagree? That's what the buttons are for.

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